<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2017 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
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**/

$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'Bigender',
	'body' => <<<END
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve put my striped shirts back in my closet.
		I&apos;m glad I didn&apos;t donate any of my clothing just yet.
		I think I purged those shirts in one of my Lexi moods, but Xander actually doesn&apos;t mind strips.
		Especially given a good colour scheme, stripes are very fitting for Xander.
		The plaid&apos;s still gotta&apos; go though.
		Plaid is horrible and ugly, and I never wear it anyway.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="mental">
	<h2>Mental health watch</h2>
	<p>
		The desire to be a girl is back.
		I&apos;m starting to remember the desire more clearly from before, too.
		This is the first time I&apos;ve really felt it in years.
		I think ... mostly I just want to be seen as a girl.
		My body is fine, I don&apos;t care about that so much.
		And ... I want to be in a relationship in which my partner is my protector.
		I want to be someone&apos;s treasure, if that makes any sense.
		My feminine side is becoming stronger and more assertive of her desires.
		My masculine side isn&apos;t losing any ground though, it&apos;s not like that.
		His desires just lie elsewhere, such as in developing software and solving puzzles.
		I think most of my relationship capabilities lie with my feminine half though.
		There&apos;s not much masculinity that I&apos;ll likely bring to a relationship.
		The name &quot;Lexi&quot; feels more like my own, while the name &quot;Xander&quot; seems to have become more foreign to me.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m starting to think again that I should&apos;ve gotten hormone treatments while I still had the chance, but I was never presented with that opportunity.
		Why do I feel this way!?
		My emotional side desperately wants to be a girl now.
		But my logical side says none of the medical procedures would be worth it.
		I think if I could find a man that loved me the way I seem to need to be loved, I could be happy with my body.
		It&apos;s not my body that&apos;s the problem; it&apos;s how I&apos;m perceived and treated.
		I think I might be transgendered after all, though for now, I&apos;m not seriously considering becoming a transexual.
	</p>
	<p>
		I need to look at things logically.
		A lifetime of hormone treatments to maintain a feminine appearance doesn&apos;t sound pleasant.
		Surgery to change sexes seems rather drastic.
		My body isn&apos;t the problem.
		There shouldn&apos;t really be a need for a protector in modern society.
		If I&apos;m truly transgendered, that&apos;s not something I can escape, but I should be able to find happiness with the current reality.
		For example, it&apos;s not likely I&apos;ll find a macho gay man that&apos;ll want a feminine male partner.
		At least, that&apos;s my guess.
		The stereotype is that gay men are feminine.
		I don&apos;t know how much this stereotype holds up, but it makes a good worst-case scenario to look at.
		If I&apos;m a woman in a man&apos;s body, how well can I enjoy life with a feminine partner?
		Do we need any masculinity in the relationship at all?
		If yes and no respectively, I&apos;m back where I started, as far as being gay.
		In other words, everything might be fine.
		If there&apos;s no danger, neither of us needs protect the other.
		And of course, when things do come up, we&apos;d both be there for one another.
		It wouldn&apos;t need to be a one-way street.
		Even if I <strong>*were*</strong> physically a girl, it&apos;d be incredibly sexist for me to try to assume the role of the protected and try to make my partner be the protector.
	</p>
	<p>
		I really wish my mother wasn&apos;t so toxic.
		If I&apos;d been able to be me all along, I&apos;d&apos;ve already gotten through all this by now.
		Being able to work through my emotional needs in high school, when I was actually around people to date, would&apos;ve been of huge benefit.
		Now, I&apos;m ... just kind of stuck.
		I don&apos;t come in contact with so many people on a continual basis, and those that I do, aren&apos;t interested in me.
		They&apos;re all either heterosexual and cisgendered or they&apos;re already in a relationship.
	</p>
	<p>
		Next issue: why in the world do I want to be someone&apos;s treasure?
		Their trinket?
		Their bauble?
		These feelings are incredibly confusing to me.
		I feel like I should want to be good for something, not just kept as a beloved token by someone.
		While one part of me yearns for this, another rejects the very idea.
		I&apos;m starting to become very frustrated with my hodgepodge brain.
		It&apos;s possible that because I felt so <strong>*unloved*</strong> for so long, that now I&apos;m feeling a strong need for the reverse.
		This could be temporary, and could go away once I&apos;ve found someone to love me, even if we don&apos;t assume any particular roles.
		At the moment though, I think that&apos;s just wishful thinking.
		I&apos;m probably always going to want to be the feminine one in a relationship.
	</p>
	<p>
		Blank ...
		The transwoman I read about, who wasn&apos;t allowed to feel or express who she was ...
		She said she came out blank, like I did.
		Ugh.
		I really am a transwoman, aren&apos;t I?
		The next question, I guess, is do I feel trapped in this body?
		Sure, I&apos;d like to have a few curves, but I&apos;d also like a darker, Latin-looking skin tone, teeth that aren&apos;t rotting out of my face, and a gut that isn&apos;t so fat it keeps me from seeing my toes when I stand up straight.
		I really do need to lose the gut, and I&apos;m trying, but other than that, can I be happy with what I&apos;ve got?
		Do I <strong>*need*</strong> to go through hormone therapy to find happiness?
		I convinced myself before that I don&apos;t feel trapped, but is that the honest truth?
		And if I <STRONG>*do*</STRONG> go through hormone therapy, will I ever be able to find a partner?
		I still highly doubt I&apos;d be willing to go through the surgery and I&apos;m already past puberty, so I&apos;d be a woman with a man&apos;s stature and a man&apos;s genitalia.
		I&apos;d like to say that wouldn&apos;t matter, but who am I kidding?
		It totally would.
		People are petty and shallow.
		Even <strong>*I*</strong> seem to be petty and shallow; I really want my partner to have a penis.
		If I were to try a relationship with a straight man, he&apos;d want me to have a vagina.
		If I try a relationship with a gay man, he&apos;d want me to be a man, not a woman.
	</p>
	<p>
		I feel ... defective.
		Alone, I&apos;m a perfect, functioning person, but ... I don&apos;t fit into what society is or wants me to be.
		I don&apos;t fit into a box that seems to be allowed to be happy.
		I&apos;m starting to hate being me.
		To be clear, I don&apos;t hate me, I just hate <strong>*being*</strong> me.
	</p>
	<p>
		I think I do want the hormone therapy, but am not currently in a good position to start it.
		I need to finish school and I need to get a better job, one that pays the bills better.
		I really need to wait until after the festival too, which will come even sooner.
		I need to see others similar to me, others that don&apos;t fit into the standard boxes.
		What are gay people even like?
		If they&apos;re as effeminate as me, and still lovable (as potential partners; they&apos;re obviously of course lovable as friends), I might not need to change my body at all.
	</p>
	<p>
		The hormones could change my thoughts and emotions, too.
		If I&apos;m right, and I do in fact have a masculine half, adding testosterone blockers and oestrogen to my body could kill him.
		There are more masculine characteristics that I have and don&apos;t want to lose.
		Lately, I&apos;ve been overly emotional, but before that, I was more logic-oriented.
		I think that&apos;s my masculine side.
		He&apos;s also fairly decent with computers, and I want to keep that.
		Also, he&apos;s ... actually, I can&apos;t think of anything else off the top of my head.
		Is that all my masculine side has to offer?
	</p>
	<p>
		I was too distracted by my stupid, emotional state to get any coursework done.
		I ended up doing more research, and found exactly the information I think I needed.
		According to the Wikipedia article on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigender">bigenderism</a>:
	</p>
	<blockquote cite="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigender">
		<p>
			Some bigender individuals express two distinct &quot;female&quot; and &quot;male&quot; personas, feminine and masculine respectively; others find that they identify as two genders simultaneously.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		I identify my distinct halves as masculine and feminine, not male and female, as I do my best not to misuse words.
		However, this very much describes what I have going with Lexi and Xander.
		Additionally:
	</p>
	<blockquote cite="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigender">
		<p>
			A bigender gender-identity has been described as varying over time between two extremes.
			These periods can be anywhere from a few hours to a few years and there is no limit to the number of times that it may change.
			A student at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, described the back and forth shift, saying
		</p>
		<blockquote>
			<p>
				Some days I wake up and think &apos;Why am I in this body?&apos; [while] most days I wake up and think, &apos;What was I thinking yesterday?&apos;
			</p>
		</blockquote>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		Crap.
		I&apos;m not agendered and I&apos;m not transgendered; I&apos;m bigendered.
		And right now, Lexi&apos;s taking me for a ride.
		Xander will be back in charge soon enough, probably.
		I don&apos;t think being Lexi&apos;s that bad though, aside from the freaking out about body image issues and potential relationship issues that haven&apos;t even occurred yet.
		If I can get Lexi to calm down, I should quite enjoy drifting between Lexi mode and Xander mode.
		I might instead be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderfluid">genderfluid</a>, as I can feel like I&apos;m in a superposition of Lexi and Xander at times, and I never really feel like taking on pronouns or titles from either binary gender.
		The important lesson for me from today though is a reaffirmation that Lexi and Xander are, in fact, both in me.
		Drastic body modifications are very likely a horrible idea in my specific case.
		If I start trying to turn myself physically into a girl, I&apos;m going to have times I want to be a boy again.
		I can&apos;t simply flip my body back and forth.
		For one, the process of going one direction takes years.
		I won&apos;t even finish one transformation before wanting to reverse it.
		Second, even if I could steady my desires long enough, going back and forth repeatedly&apos;s got to be hard on a body.
		It&apos;d very likely kill me after a few iterations.
		My body&apos;s like my hair, but more extreme.
		I can&apos;t chop off my hair in one of my Xander moods, then expect to have it back come the next Lexi mood.
		Likewise, I can&apos;t go seeking hormone replacement therapy in one of my Lexi moods, then expect to still be a man come the next Xander mood.
		And that&apos;s assuming that the hormones don&apos;t entirely <strong>*kill*</strong> Xander.
		I can&apos;t take horrible risks that could put half of my personality in jeopardy.
		Lexi <strong>*really*</strong> wants to be Lexi sometimes, but that doesn&apos;t mean that Xander doesn&apos;t have a right to even exist.
	</p>
	<p>
		I think this might be why I&apos;m turned off by thoughts of women&apos;s genitalia, as well.
		I see attraction in male and female bodies, and come to think of it, I seem to usually have a preference for one or the other.
		However, a partner&apos;s outward appearance won&apos;t matter too much in a long-term relationship, so either of my sides can accept a partner that the other side chooses, as long as that partner can get along with <strong>*both*</strong> Lexi and Xander and click with them.
		In bed though ... I think Lexi and Xander have different needs.
		With a woman, I&apos;d be boxed into Xander&apos;s role at all times.
		With a man, we should be able to switch positions, if he&apos;s open to it.
		And I think I need a man that&apos;s open to that.
		Then again though, there are bedroom toys.
		I should be able to make a relationship work with someone of either sex, as long as that person is accepting of my duel nature.
	</p>
	<p>
		I spent most of the day biking around town as Lexi, trying to make sense of my situation.
		I&apos;ve come to two interesting conclusions.
		First, Lexi and Xander don&apos;t speak in unison like I thought they did.
		They don&apos;t seem to argue, but it&apos;s because when one speaks up, the other quiets down.
		That first time when I found they were both in here and I thought they began to integrate, it was likely just Lexi there at the time.
		The exhilaration of feeling whole was probably Lexi ecstatic just to know she existed, and always had.
		Second, until I can work through Lexi&apos;s body image issues, I&apos;m effectively bipolar.
		As Xander, I&apos;m perfectly comfortable in my own skin, but as Lexi, I desperately want a vagina and curves.
		If I can work out the kinks, being bigendered can probably be fun, but until I do, I&apos;m not really very stable.
		I thought before I&apos;d taken care of my mood swings, but clearly, I haven&apos;t.
		At least this time, I think I&apos;ve located the true source of them.
		That should be a good first step.
		Third, I need to try to rework my self-expression.
		At work, I tend to be Xander.
		In fact, I think I <strong>*try*</strong> to be Xander there.
		However, that leaves Lexi mostly unexpressed, so she comes out on my days off.
		I don&apos;t need Xander at work, but I <strong>*do*</strong> need him to come out on my days off to work on coursework.
		I need to draw Lexi out at work, so I can be Xander at home.
	</p>
	<p>
		I apologise for this long and winding monologue.
		Lexi wrote most of that, little by little, while freaking out.
		I tend to write to help me work out my thoughts, and it really helps, but it leaves my journal in a semi-incoherent mess.
		I think Xander&apos;s back though, at least partially.
		I knew it wouldn&apos;t be too long until that happened.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		The school sent the receipts (one for each course) for my tuition payment.
		My paranoia was unfounded, as I thought it probably was even at the time.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
